Night owl sleep habits can make you put on weight

A study shows that night owl sleep habits can cause a person to put on weight.

A new study done at the UC Berkeley’s Golden Bear Sleep and Mood Research Clinic, says going to bed late at night can lead to weight gain, according to an article onnews.berkeley.edu.

The study found a link between sleep and Body mass index (BMI), and the results are showing that teens and also adults that get to bed late during the week are probably going to put on more weight than those who have an earlier bedtime each night.

The researchers looked at the numbers from over 3,300 participants, youth and adult, and they discovered a gain of 2.1 pounds on the BMI for each hour of sleep lost over a five -year period.

Surprisingly, they found that the gain in BMI held true despite the participants regimen of exercise, TV or computer screen time or even the number of hours they slept overall.

BMI is calculated using the body’s height and weight and is a useful metric for measuring weight gain and obesity.  A healthy BMI is said to be between 18.5 and 24.9.  A BMI of 25.0 to 29.9 is considered overweight and 30.0 or greater is classified as obese.

The data the researchers used came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.  That study has been recording the behaviors of teens from the United States since 1994.  In the new study, they compared the BMI and the bedtimes for teens at the onset of puberty, during their college-age years and as young adults.

Lauren Asarnow, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in UC Berkeley’s Golden Bear Sleep and Mood Research Clinic said “These results highlight adolescent bedtimes, not just total sleep time, as a potential target for weight management during the transition to adulthood.”

She also added that young people that go to sleep earlier each night “set their weight on a healthier course as they emerge into adulthood.”

Earlier surveys and studies have revealed that teens do not get the recommended amount of sleep each night, and many teens report having difficulty staying alert and awake in school.

Later in life, the natural circadian rhythm shifts toward a later sleep cycle.  The circadian rhythm is the natural body clock that regulates your metabolic and physiological functions.

Other studies have suggested a link between late night owls and mental health.  It appears that people that are going to bed later have an increased risk of developing depression and other mental health related issues.

The hope is that the findings of the study will encourage young adults to be more conscious of the effect of late-night bedtimes, despite the pressure they will feel to be a part of their social group, particularly in a college-type setting.

Even if they are aware of the benefits of earlier sleep times, it will be difficult to maintain that type schedule while being a student.

Habits are hard to break as well.  If teens are used to going to bed a 10 to 11 PM during high school years, they will have a hard time changing their cycle once they are out on their own.  Parents who see the results of the study may want to monitor their children more closely and develop an earlier bedtime ritual at an early age to make it easier later on in life.

No teen wants to gain weight, especially around their peers in a university setting, and it is hoped that these findings will encourage teens and young adults to take their sleeping habits more seroiously.

The co-authors of the study include Allison Harvey at UC-Berkeley and Elanor McGlinchey at Columbia University, along with Ms. Asarnow, who is a researcher on UC-Berkeley’s Teen Sleep Study.

The Teen Sleep Study seeks to assist teens to reset the circadian rhythms of young people that are having trouble sleeping and waking up on time.

The results of the study were published in the October edition of the journal Sleep.

Read more here

How sleep apnea affects aerobic fitness

This study discusses how aerobic fitness can be affected by having sleep apnea.

People with sleep apnea may have lower levels of aerobic fitness, a new study suggests.

Sleep apnea causes the upper airway to become blocked by soft tissue in the back of the throat during sleep. This causes pauses in breathing and other symptoms, such as gasping and snoring.

The research included 15 adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea and a comparison group of 19 adults with mild or no apnea. They pedaled a stationary bike at increasingly harder resistance levels -- similar to climbing up a progressively steeper hill -- and kept going until exhaustion.

On average, people in the sleep apnea group scored 14 percent lower on a test that measures the maximum amount of oxygen a person can take in during intense exercise. This measurement is called VO2 max.

People with sleep apnea are more likely to be overweight or obese, and thus less fit, the researchers noted. However, they found that people with sleep apnea had poorer aerobic fitness than those in the comparison group, even if they were the same body size.

Although this study found an association between lower oxygen intake during activity and sleep apnea, it wasn't designed to prove that sleep apnea was the definitive cause of this difference.

Results of the study were published in the Nov. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

"Encouraging patients to exercise more is part of the story, but that is not the whole story," lead author Dr. Jeremy Beitler, assistant clinical professor in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, said in a university news release.

"We believe the sleep apnea itself causes structural changes in muscle that contributes to their difficulty exercising," he added.

The researchers said measuring VO2 max may help identify sleep apnea patients at increased risk for heart attack and stroke, which could encourage earlier treatment of sleep apnea, which is underdiagnosed and often untreated.

Read more here

Weight loss surgery and severe headaches

A study claims that weight loss surgery can increase a person's likelihood of having severe headaches.

After weight-loss surgery, some patients may be at risk for developing severe headaches, a new study suggests.

In a small number of people, the surgery was associated with a condition known as spontaneous intracranial hypotension -- or low blood pressure in the brain. The condition can trigger headaches while standing that disappear when lying down. These headaches can be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, neck stiffness and difficulty concentrating, the researchers added.

But Dr. Mitchell Roslin, chief of bariatric surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said the study is too small to be able to draw any firm conclusions.

"You're talking about 11 people out of more than 300, and that's a low number," said Roslin, who had no part in the study. "The other thing that's strange is that these headaches showed up an average of 56.5 months after surgery, which is a long time.

"This would not be my concern if I was contemplating bariatric surgery," Roslin said.

The report was published online Oct. 22 in the journal Neurology.

Although it is not clear why this condition might develop after weight-loss surgery, the researchers speculated that significant weight loss alters pressure in the brain, which might uncover a pre-existing condition that causes fluid to leak from the spine and trigger severe headaches.

While the study showed an association between weight-loss surgery and an increased risk of severe headaches, it did not prove a cause-and-effect link.

For the study, a team led by Dr. Wouter Schievink, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, studied 338 people with spontaneous intracranial hypotension. They compared these people with 245 people with unruptured intracranial aneurysms -- a weak spot in a blood vessel in the brain that can break and cause bleeding, another condition that can cause headaches.

The researchers found that 11 of those with spontaneous intracranial hypotension had weight-loss surgery, compared with two of those with intracranial aneurysms (3.3 percent versus 0.8 percent).

Among those who had weight-loss surgery, headaches started within three months to 20 years after the procedure.

Of the 11 people who had weight-loss surgery and spontaneous intracranial hypotension, treatment relieved the headaches in nine cases. Two patients continued to have headaches after treatment, the researchers found.

"It's important for people who have had bariatric surgery and their doctors to be aware of this possible link, which has not been reported before," Schievink said in a statement. "This could be the cause of sudden, severe headaches that can be treated effectively, but there can be serious consequences if misdiagnosed."

Dr. John Morton, chief of bariatric and minimally invasive surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, noted that obesity increases pressure in the brain and is a more common cause of headaches.

"When you carry excess weight, you have increased pressure in the brain," Morton explained.

In some patients, that increased pressure leads to headaches and even blindness, which are actually relieved by weight-loss surgery, he noted.

Read more here

Teens who sleep less gain more weight in 20s

A study shows that less sleep during the teen years means a person gains more weight by age 21.

Lack of sleep not only puts teens at risk for poor grades, it also puts them at increased risk for obesity, researchers warn.

The study authors analyzed data collected from more than 10,000 Americans when they were aged 16 and 21. Nearly one-fifth of them got less than six hours of sleep a night when they were age 16, and this group was 20 percent more likely to be obese at age 21 than those who got more than eight hours of sleep per night at age 16, the investigators found.

Although lack of exercise and too much time spent watching television were also risk factors for obesity, these behaviors did not account for the link between lack of sleep and obesity, according to the study published online recently in the Journal of Pediatrics.

"Lack of sleep in your teenage years can stack the deck against you for obesity later in life. Once you're an obese adult, it is much harder to lose weight and keep it off. And the longer you are obese, the greater your risk for health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer," study author Shakira Suglia, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York City, said in a university news release.

"The message for parents is to make sure their teenagers get more than eight hours a night. A good night's sleep does more than help them stay alert in school. It helps them grow into healthy adults," Suglia added.

Teens should get nine to 10 hours of sleep a night, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's known that daytime sleepiness and fatigue affect what and how people eat by triggering cravings and altering appetite. For example, sleep-deprived people find it easier to buy calorie-laden fast food rather than preparing a healthy meal.

Read more here

Weight gain triggered by tonsillectomy

A study shows that weight gain in children can be triggered by tonsillectomies used to treat sleep apnea.

Tonsillectomies are commonly done to relieve sleep apnea in children, but a new study confirms that the treatment can speed kids' weight gain -- especially if they're already overweight.

The researchers said that's a concern, because obesity is a risk factor for a range of health problems -- including, ironically, sleep apnea. But they're not advising against tonsillectomy for kids who need it.

Instead, they said, doctors and parents should be aware that a healthy diet and exercise become even more important after children have the surgery.

"You can't just treat the sleep apnea. You have to have nutrition and lifestyle counseling, too," said lead researcher Dr. Eliot Katz, a respiratory disease specialist at Boston Children's Hospital.

A pediatric sleep specialist who was not involved in the study agreed.

"Nutrition and exercise are just as important as treating the sleep apnea with a single procedure," said Dr. Sangeeta Chakravorty, who co-directs the pediatric sleep evaluation center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Obstructive sleep apnea arises when constriction in the airways causes repeated pauses in breathing during the night. In children, the most common cause is swelling in the tonsils and adenoids -- infection-fighting tissues in the back of the throat and the nasal cavity, respectively. And surgery to remove those tissues (known technically as adenotonsillectomy) is often recommended.

Doctors have long known that after the surgery, kids can gain weight at an accelerated clip, Chakravorty said.

But the new study, reported online July 28 and in the August print issue of the journal Pediatrics, offers "certainty" that it's actually an effect of the treatment, Katz said.

That's because children in the study were randomly assigned to have surgery or to "watchful waiting" -- putting off surgery and staying with other options, such as medications to better control any nasal allergies or asthma symptoms.

Altogether, 204 children aged 5 to 9 were assigned to have surgery right away, while 192 stuck with watchful waiting. Katz's team found that over seven months, children who underwent surgery showed a quicker average weight gain, versus kids in the comparison group.

It was a small difference overall, Chakravorty said. And for children who were normal weight, there was no major effect.

"It's not making normal-weight children obese," Chakravorty noted.

But there was a clearer impact on kids who were overweight before surgery. Of those children, 52 percent had become officially obese seven months after surgery, compared with 21 percent of overweight children in the watchful-waiting group, the study found.

There are a few possible explanations for the post-surgery weight gain, according to Katz's team. Calorie-burning may dip when children are no longer laboring to breathe during sleep. And some kids may burn fewer calories during the day because they become less active after their sleep apnea improves. (Paradoxically, poor sleep often causes children to be "hyperactive," rather than drowsy, Katz explained.)

Sleep apnea itself also causes metabolic changes, Katz said. Growth hormone is released at night, and the sleep disorder can interfere with that. So the body may adapt metabolism in an effort to maintain a child's growth.

"When the sleep apnea is relieved, they're set up for rapid weight gain," Katz said.

It was once common for children with sleep apnea to be underweight and have "failure to thrive," Chakravorty noted. For those kids, rapid weight gain after tonsillectomy can be a good thing.

But these days, with childhood obesity on the rise, many kids with sleep apnea are already overweight or obese. If they rapidly put on pounds, Katz said, their sleep apnea might return in six months to a year.

"After surgery, parents are often very satisfied," Katz noted. "Their kids are sleeping better, and they may be better behaved and doing better in school. But there's this insidious issue of weight gain."

Chakravorty agreed that diet and exercise are key for children with sleep apnea -- but she said that's true regardless of the treatment approach. And, for heavy kids, weight loss alone might clear up the sleep apnea.

But if children ultimately do need surgery, parents shouldn't skip it due to worries about weight gain, according to Katz. He noted that if improved sleep apnea symptoms explain the post-surgery pounds, then other treatments -- including medication or continuous positive airway pressure devices -- could also spur excess weight gain.

"I think there are implications beyond surgical treatment," Katz said.

Read more here

Does weight gain cause sleep apnea, or does sleep apnea cause weight gain?

This article discusses the link between sleep apnea and weight gain, and other serious consequences of untreated sleep apnea.

When you know that "apnea" is the Greek word for "without breath," you begin to understand how scary sleep apnea can be. Sleeping without breath? That just can't be good for you … and it's not. Because its main symptoms (snoring and daytime fatigue) are easily overlooked, it is one of the most undiagnosed sleep disorders in the country, according to Health Magazine.

Sleep apnea has been shown to be related to a host of health concerns, including hypertension and heart disease, but when it comes to the relationship between sleep apnea and weight gain, which comes first? Does weight gain cause sleep apnea, or does sleep apnea cause weight gain?

In one of those great anatomical double-whammies, the answer to that question is "yes" and "yes." The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute explains that sleep apnea happens when you're asleep and your upper respiratory passages relax. For most of us, that's no big deal. For some people, though, that can cause problems. It may be because their airways are more narrow, their tongues are too big, or their tonsils are too large. And it may be because they are overweight. If you're carrying extra soft fat tissue, it can actually thicken the walls of your windpipe, making it narrower and increasing your risk for sleep apnea. So yes, gaining weight can contribute to getting sleep apnea.

But it doesn't stop there. Because sleep apnea means that you never (and I mean, never) get a good night's sleep, the idea of any exercise seems absurd. It would be like having a newborn baby that doesn't ever grow up. Actually, it would be worse than that because even newborns will let you sleep for a couple of hours at a time. Sleep apnea doesn't. You can wake up gasping for breath every few minutes all night long, or you can just snort and snore and roll over many times in the course of sleep cycle. Either way, you don't ever run a full sleep cycle; your body never really gets the rest it needs to rebuild or rejuvenate. You are exhausted all the time. You know you need to exercise to lose some weight so you can sleep better, but you're out of breath just walking to your car; how in the world are you going to walk around the block or take the stairs instead of the elevator?

And just to add insult to injury, a 2004 PLOS study revealed that sleep-deprived people had higher levels of ghrelin, the hormone our body produces to stimulate appetite, and reduced levels of leptin, the hormone our bodies make to suppress appetite. So, yes, sleep apnea can contribute to gaining weight.

So what's an overweight, sleep-deprived person to do? Don't despair; there are options. Traditional sleep apnea treatments such as CPACs (continuous positive airway compressors) can be helpful. Some people learn to sleep with them all night, every night. Others can never really get quite comfortable with it, but it might be just enough to get them moving in the right direction. Even just walking to the end of the street helps, and many sleep apnea patients enjoy bike riding because it lessens the pressure on their joints. The key is to tackle both issues – weight gain and sleep apnea – together, as improvements in one condition often yield improvements in the other. Just as the two worsen together, so they also improve together. Small changes can make a big impact over time, so the important thing is to talk to you doctor, don't give up, and take it one small step at a time.

If you feel like you never get a good night's sleep, sleep apnea could be to blame. Ask your doctor for more information, and remember that St. Francis offers a Sleep Disorder Center that can help identify the source of your sleeplessness.

Read more here

Sleep quality and obesity in children

A new study provides more evidence that sleep and sleep quality are linked to obesity in children.

Young children who get too little sleep are more likely than others to be obese by age 7, according to a new study.

Previous research has suggested insufficient sleep before age 4 raised the risk of obesity. But the new study, published online May 19 inPediatrics, observed the link from infancy to mid-childhood.

"Insufficient sleep is an independent and strong risk factor for childhood obesity and the accumulation of total fat and abdominal fat," said study researcher Dr. Elsie Taveras, chief of general pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston.

"The main strength of this study is we looked at sleep at multiple periods," she added.

Excess body fat in childhood sets the stage for serious health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes.

Taveras and her team studied more than 1,000 children. Curtailed sleep was defined as fewer than 12 hours a day from ages 6 months to 2 years, fewer than 10 hours daily for ages 3 and 4, and fewer than nine hours a day for ages 5 to 7.

Kids who were most sleep deprived were about 2.5 times more likely to be obese than those who slept the most, the study found.

They were also 2.5 times more likely to have higher total fat, higher abdominal fat and a higher waist and hip circumference, said Taveras.

Many possible explanations exist for this association, Taveras said.

"If you sleep too little, it disrupts some of the hormones that regulate how hungry we are and how full we are," Taveras said.

In households with no consistent bedtime for children, there is likely to be chaos around regular mealtimes, too, and that can affect weight, she added.

Children who don't sleep enough may watch more television than kids who go to bed earlier, she said. Watching TV has long been linked with eating more, especially in response to food commercials, she said.

Or the children may have other "high-tech distractions," she said.

The new findings don't surprise Dr. William Muinos, director of the weight management program at Miami Children's Hospital in Florida, who was not involved in the study.

His advice for parents? Set a consistent bedtime. "Limit caffeinated beverages late in the day. Cut out all those electronic distractions; get them out of the bedroom," Taveras said.

Insist that children go to bed earlier, Muinos said. "Lack of sleep does change the physiology," he added. "It will put you in what is called stress mode. The body will read it as, 'I need to hold onto calories and accumulate fat.'"

The new research, Muinos said, "is very good because it studied a large group of children for a long period of time."

Ongoing studies are looking at whether improving sleep may directly improve weight control in children, Taveras said. And it's already known that good sleep has other benefits. "There's really good evidence that shows it improves schoolwork," she said.

For the study, mothers reported their children's usual sleep duration in a 24-hour period, beginning at age 6 months. They also reported it every year from age 1 to 7.

The children got a sleep score, ranging from zero (insufficient sleep) to 13 (consistent sufficient sleep). The average sleep score was 10.2. However, about 4 percent of kids were in the insufficient range, zero to 4. About 40 percent had a score of 12 or 13, termed enough sleep.

Those who slept less than average were more likely to be from poorer families with less educated mothers, the study found.

Read more here

Study: People who sleep less eat more

A new study in children show that those who sleep less are more likely to be overeaters.

Young children who sleep less eat more, which can lead to obesity and related health problems later in life, reports a new study by UCL researchers.

The study found that 16 month-old children who slept for less than 10 hours each day consumed on average 105kcal more per day than children who slept for more than 13 hours. This is an increase of around 10% from 982kcal to 1087kcal.

Associations between eating, weight and sleep have been reported previously in older children and adults, but the study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, is the first to directly link sleep to energy intake in children under the age of 3 years. The association was observed before differences in weight emerged, strongly suggesting that energy intake is a key pathway through which sleep contributes to weight gain in early childhood. While the exact causes remain unclear, the regulation of appetite hormones may become disrupted by shorter sleeping patterns.

The study, funded by Cancer Research UK, involved 1303 UK families in the Gemini birth cohort, monitoring sleep when children were 16 months old and diet at 21 months old.

"We know that shorter sleep in early life increases the risk of obesity, so we wanted to understand whether shorter sleeping children consume more calories" explains Dr Abi Fisher of the Health Behaviour Research Centre at UCL. "Previous studies in adults and older children have shown that sleep loss causes people to eat more, but in early life parents make most of the decisions about when and how much their children eat, so young children cannot be assumed to show the same patterns.

"The key message here is that shorter sleeping children may prone to consume too many calories," says Dr Fisher. "Although more research is needed to understand why this might be, it is something parents should be made aware of."

Read more here

Study: Losing sleep hurts obese teen's health

A study shows that lack of sleep can hurt the health of obese teens and may increase their risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Obese teens who get too little sleep are at increased risk for heart disease and diabetes, a small study suggests.

Researchers assessed the health, physical activity levels and sleeping habits of 37 obese American youngsters, aged 11 to 17.

Among the study participants, only one-third met the minimum recommendations of being physically active at least one hour per day. Most slept about seven hours a night, typically waking up at least once. Only five got the minimum recommended 8.5 hours of sleep each night.

Too little sleep was associated with an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes, independent of other risk factors, such as lack of physical activity and high levels of body fat, according to the University of Michigan Health System and Baylor University researchers.

The findings, published March 6 in The Journal of Pediatrics, suggest that sleep assessments may be useful in spotting teens at risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Further studies are needed to find out if getting more sleep would help reduce teens' risk for these health problems, lead author Heidi IglayReger, supervisor of the Physical Activity Laboratory at the Michigan Metabolomics and Obesity Center, and colleagues noted in the news release.

Previous research has shown that obesity and lack of sleep are linked with increased risk of heart disease and diabetes in adults and young children, but that association has not been clear in teens, the study authors pointed out.

While the study showed an association between lack of sleep and a raised risk for heart disease and diabetes in teens, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Read more here

Losing weight can help you lose sleep apnea

A study shows that losing weight can help a person lose sleep apnea.

Losing weight -- and keeping it off -- could help sleep apnea from getting worse and could even reverse it, a small new study suggests.

Researchers from Finland found that maintaining weight loss of as little as 5 percentis associated with improvement in obstructive sleep apnea, which is a sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep leading to disrupted sleep.

The findings confirm sleep apnea treatment guidelines issued last year by the American College of Physicians, which say that the very first treatment for sleep apnea among overweight people should be weight loss, and the second treatment option should be continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP).

For the new study, published in the journal Sleep Medicine, researchers followed 57 people who were obese and had mild obstructive sleep apnea. The participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: One group underwent a year-long lifestyle intervention program, while the other group just received general diet and exercise information. The researchers specifically wanted to see how a 5 percent weight loss would potentially affect sleep apnea.

Researchers followed up with the participants four years later (after the year-long intervention program), and found that 20 were "successful" in achieving 5 percent weight loss, while 27 were "unsuccessful" in achieving 5 percent weight loss. The ones who did lose the weight had an improved apnea-hypopnea index (an indicator of sleep apnea severity, which is calculated by dividing the number of pauses of breathing by hours of sleep) compared with those who didn't lose the weight.

Plus, people who lost the weight were less likely to have their obstructive sleep apnea progress over the follow-up period than those who didn't lose the weight, researchers found. 

Read more here

Study: Almost half of the world suffers from a sleep disorder

A study claims that 45% of the world's population suffers from some type of sleep disorder.

Forty-five percent of the world's population suffers from some form of sleep disorder. Obstructive sleep apnea, the most common sleep disorder reported in Canada, affects three out of four adults above the age of 45.

According to new recommendations recently published by the American College of Physicians (ACP), individuals suffering from sleep apnea should not consider surgery, but rather two complimentary approaches: weight loss and treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP).

CPAP is a non-invasive therapy that works by providing a gentle flow of pressured air through the nose and or mouth using a mask. The positive air pressure prevents the airway from collapsing so the user can breathe freely during sleep.

The ACP recommendations state that CPAP more effectively raised the minimum oxygen saturation compared to other treatment options.

Sleep apnea affects approximately 860,000 Canadian adults, and is a known risk factor for a host of other conditions including heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure and daytime drowsiness.

“There are three important steps to helping individuals with OSA: awareness, diagnosis and treatment. Each is integral to improving the sleep quality and overall health of individuals around the world,” said Dr. Lee-Chiong, chief medical liaison for Philips Home Healthcare Solutions.

Individuals affected by sleep apnea stop breathing repeatedly during sleep because of a blocked or collapsed airway, but are generally not aware of it. During these moments of paused breathing, which can last between 10 seconds to more than a minute, oxygen levels drop.

Obesity is known to raise the likelihood of having sleep apnea, but people of any weight can experience it.

If you think you or someone you know may suffer from as sleep disorder, take the online risk quiz http://worldsleepday.respironics.com/risk-test.html and talk to your doctor.

Read more here

Children's blood pressure may raise with a bad night's sleep

Children who had a bad night's sleep, or who lost hours of sleep, see a moderate raise in their blood pressure. This can lead to health complications later in life such as heart disease.

Kids who don't get enough sleep at night may experience a slight spike in their blood pressure the next day even if they are not overweight or obese, a new study suggests.

The research included 143 kids aged 10 to 18 who spent one night in a sleep lab for observation. They also wore a 24-hour blood pressure monitor and kept a seven-day sleep diary.

The participants were all normal weight. None had significant sleep apnea -- a condition characterized by disrupted breathing during sleep. The sleep disorder has been linked to high blood pressure.

According to the findings, just one less hour of sleep per night led to an increase of 2 millimeters of mercury (mm/Hg) in systolic blood pressure. That's the top number in a blood pressure reading. It gauges the pressure of blood moving through arteries.

One less hour of nightly sleep also led to a 1 mm/Hg rise in diastolic blood pressure. That's bottom number, which measures the resting pressure in the arteries between heart beats.

Catching up on sleep over the weekend can help improve blood pressure somewhat, but is not enough to reverse this effect entirely, report researchers led by Chun Ting Au, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

So, even though the overall effect of sleep loss on blood pressure was small, it could have implications for risk of heart disease in the future, they suggested.

Exactly how lost sleep leads to increases in blood pressure is not fully understood, but Au and colleagues speculate that it may give rise to increases in stress hormones, which are known to affect blood pressure. The findings are published online Dec. 16 and in the January print issue of Pediatrics.

Participants in the study slept anywhere from seven hours or less to more than 10 hours. The less sleep they got, the higher their blood pressure was the following day.

U.S. experts said the new findings emphasize the importance of good quality sleep for all kids.

"The study separates the effect of sleep apnea from sleep loss, and conclusively shows that sleep loss in the absence of sleep apnea raises both systolic and diastolic blood pressure," said Dr. Sanjeev Kothare, a pediatric sleep expert at NYU Langone Medical Center, in New York City.

"Pediatricians must screen for diabetes, and [high blood pressure] in teenagers with sleep loss besides screening for snoring and sleep apnea in obese teenagers," Kothare said.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, children aged 5 to 12 need 10 to 11 hours of sleep. Teens need about 9.25 hours of sleep each night to function best, but for some, 8.5 hours is enough.

"Being healthy is not only getting regular exercise and eating right, but also trying to get the appropriate amount of sleep," said Dr. Rubin Cooper, chief of pediatric cardiology at Cohen Children's Medical Center, in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

To encourage better sleep, "start a bedtime routine that helps your children wind down before bed and limit texting or social media at night," Cooper said. "Keep a similar schedule on weekdays and weekends." Other sleep hygiene tips include avoiding caffeine before bedtime.

These measures may be even more important among kids who are overweight and obese. "If you have kids who are staying up late and getting up early on top of obesity and sleep apnea, it is the perfect storm," Cooper said. But exactly how big of a difference better sleep would make in this scenario is unknown, he noted.

Although the study found an association between kids getting less sleep and a slight increase in blood pressure, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

The bottom line is that "sleep isn't optional for adolescents," said Dr. Metee Comkornruecha, an adolescent medicine specialist at Miami Children's Hospital.

Read more here

PTSD increases weight gain in women, study claims

A recent study shows that women who suffer from PTSD are more likely to have weight gain and be overweight or obese than women who do not have PTSD.

Women with post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to be overweight or obese than women without the condition, a new study suggests.

According to the researchers, one in nine women will have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at some point in her life. That's twice as often as men. Women are more likely to experience traumatic events, such as rape, which carry a high risk for PTSD, the study authors said.

"PTSD is not just about mental health, but also has physical health consequences," said lead researcher Karestan Koenen, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, in New York City.

Women with PTSD gain weight faster than women who do not have the condition, Koenen said. "This, in turn, has consequences for the risk of heart disease and all the adverse outcomes associated with obesity," she said.

How PTSD is linked to weight gain isn't known, Koenen said, but it may be caused by the high levels of hormones released because of stress.

These hormones are involved in a range of body processes, including metabolism, she said.

"In addition, women with PTSD may change behaviors that lead to obesity," Koenen said. "There is evidence that people under stress crave high-calorie processed foods, so it could be diet." These women also are less likely to exercise, she said.

Koenen said the same problem may exist in men suffering from PTSD, but this hasn't been well studied.

The new report was published Nov. 20 in the online edition of the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

For their research, Koenen and her colleagues collected data on more than 50,000 women who took part in the Nurses' Health Study II between 1989 and 2009. Their ages ranged from 22 to 44 at the study's start.

The women were asked about the worst trauma they experienced and if they had symptoms of PTSD. Symptoms included re-experiencing the traumatic event, feeling threatened, avoiding social situations and feeling emotionally numb. PTSD was defined as having four or more symptoms over a month or more.

The researchers found that women originally of normal weight who developed PTSD had a 36 percent higher risk of becoming overweight or obese, compared to women who, despite experiencing trauma, didn't develop PTSD.

This finding held even after taking into account other factors, such as depression, that have also been considered major factors in weight gain, the researchers said.

In women who had PTSD before the study period began, weight increased more rapidly than it did among women without PTSD.

Although the study found an association between women having PTSD and a higher risk for obesity, it did not establish a cause-and-effect.

"This important study highlights, once again, the significant impact that psychological disorders can have on physical health," said Simon Rego, director of psychology training at the Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City. He was not involved with the research.

Rego said trauma and obesity are both common in today's society. They can cause distress, difficulty in functioning and disability, he said, and all these conditions are hard to treat. That's why it's important for doctors to understand the impact of PTSD symptoms -- not only on mental health, but also on physical health.

Treating PTSD might also help in reversing weight gain, he said. "Doctors ... should be encouraged to screen for PTSD, especially in populations at high risk for trauma but also in patients presenting with obesity," he said.

If PTSD symptoms are found, the patient should be referred to a clinical psychologist or other mental-health professional with expertise in treating PTSD, Rego said.

Read more here

Children eat more when they lose sleep

A new study from Pediatrics looks specifically at what effects adding and losing hours of sleep have on children, specifically regarding their caloric intake. In short, they found that the less sleep a child gets, the more they eat.

Many studies have shown that kids and adults who sleep less are more likely to be overweight or obese. This correlation doesn't prove that sleeplessness causes obesity: Obesity can lead to sleep problems, and lack of sleep might be associated with socioeconomic factors, less organized homes and other factors that affect weight gain.

But a new experimental sleep study, reported in Pediatrics, actually looked at what adding and subtracting sleep does to weight and caloric intake in kids, and its findings suggest that just changing sleep duration may impact kids' waistlines.

The less you sleep, the more you eat

The researchers asked 37 kids, aged 8-11 years, 27 percent of them overweight or obese, to sleep as usual for the first week of the study. During the second and third weeks the kids alternated between sleeping 1.5 hour more and 1.5 hour less per night for an entire week. Sleep duration was verified by an actigraph -- a device that is placed on the wrist and monitors activity level. On average, the actual sleep difference between the week with increased and decreased sleep was about 2.5 hours.

So what can 2.5 hours do? During the week the kids slept more they reported eating 134 fewer calories per day compared to their intake during the reduced sleep condition, and their measured weight was about half a pound less.

While you may frown upon the 134-calorie decrease, if such a reduction is maintained over a long period of time -- something further studies that last longer than three weeks will need to prove -- this would be enormous. Weight is usually gained slowly, by eating just a little more than necessary over long periods of time. The energy gap is the daily discrepancy between energy intake and energy expenditure, and for American kids, the average energy gap estimate is just 64 calories a day. Eliminating calories in just the double digits daily could prevent further weight gain and doing that in your sleep could be sweet!

The exact mechanism in which sleep affects weight is unclear. After a good night's sleep we might be more active and burn more calories, we might have reduced appetites, and craving for high-calorie foods might be curbed.

Getting a good night's sleep

Getting enough sleep helps kids grow, concentrate in school, feel good, and -- as this study further suggests -- keep a healthy weight.

And while getting enough sleep isn't always easy, one of the factors that affect sleep is in our hands. TV before bed has been shown time and time again to result in kids sleeping later, and having a screen in the bedroom not only reduces sleep -- it is correlates independently with overweight.

Read more here

Children who get more sleep weigh less

A study claims that children who sleep more weigh less than their sleepier counterparts. This shows how important getting enough sleep is to children and their health.

Getting a good night's rest is an essential part of our every-day health. It's as simple as that.

The American Psychological Association shows that as many as 40 million Americans suffer from over 70 different sleep disorders, and 60 percent of adults report having sleep problems a few nights a week or more. Not enough sleep can greatly interfere with daily activities, create moodiness and instability in an individual's life and can also be a contributor to weight gain, among other health problems.

A recent study shows that more than ever, sleep is particularly important for children-and this can play a major contribution to losing weight.

"Achieving a good night's sleep during childhood should be explored as an important strategy to enhance prevention and intervention approaches for obesity," said associate professor of public health at Temple University's Center for Obesity Research and Education in Philadelphia, Chantelle Hart. She is also the lead study author of the research.

While looking at a three-week study involving 37 children ages 8 to 11, findings suggest that increasing sleep could help decrease food intake over time and improve weight regulation in this age group.

The children who added sleep tended to eat less, with an average of 134 calories a day. They also shed about half a pound on average and had lower morning levels of the hormone leptin-a 16-kDa adipokin that plays a key role in weight regulation.

Researchers are hoping to determine if sleep over a longer period may help prevent weight loss, as well.

"The evidence is incredibly strong and consistent that a short list of lifestyle factors has a phenomenal influence on weight, health and even gene expression," Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center in New Haven, Conn. said, via Health.

Combined with a good night's rest, physical activity, eating a healthy diet, not smoking and stress reduction, these all play an important role in helping lose or maintain a healthy weight.

While adults can scrap by with eight hours a night, the National Sleep Foundation suggests that children and teens may need more.

For instance, school-aged children should get 10 to 11 hours a night while teens need around 9.25 hours of sleep, according to the organization.

At the end of their research, study authors note that while there is not a solid link between more sleep and weight loss, it potentially opens the door for greater research regarding the topic.

Read more here